around the roots of the vine, but Rose Mary knelt beside her and laid
her strong, young arm around the bent and shaking little shoulders.
Uncle Tucker rested on his spade and looked away across the garden
wall, where the little yard of graves was hid in the shadow of tall
pine trees, and his big eyes grew very tender. Miss Lavinia fingered a
shoot of the vine that had fallen across her thin old knees with a
softened expression in her prophet-woman face, while something new and
sweet stirred in Everett's breast and woke in his tired eyes, as
across half a century was wafted the perfume of a shattered romance.

And then by the time the vine had been trained Miss Lavinia had
thought of a number of other spring jobs that must be attended to
along the front walk and around all the clumps of budding shrubs, so
with one desperate glance toward the barn, his deserted haven, Uncle
Tucker fell to with his spade, while Everett obtained a fork from the
tool house and put himself under command. Rose Mary was sharply
recalled and sent into the house to complete the arrangements for the
festivities, when she had followed the forker down by the lilac hedge,
rake in hand, with evident intention of being of great assistance in
the gardening of the amateur.

"Pull the dirt up closter around those bleeding-hearts, Tucker,"
commanded Miss Lavinia from her rocker. "They are Rose Mary's I
planted the identical day she was born, and I don't want anything to
happen to 'em in the way of cutworms or such this summer."

"Well, I don't know," answered Uncle Tucker with a little chuckle in
Everett's direction, who was turning over the dirt near a rose-bush in
his close vicinity, "it don't do to pay too much attention to women's
bleeding-hearts; let alone, they'll tie 'em up in their own courage